Vermont college student from Watertown in awe of manhunt

Other Boston-area natives in region worried

The surreal drama playing out in Boston this week hits home for people from the greater Boston area now here in the Vermont and Northern New York area, especially Nicholas Lappen, a student from Watertown, Mass.

The FBI on Thursday released photos and video of two men it called suspects in the deadly bombings at the Boston Marathon and pleaded for public help in identifying them.

If you have visual images, video, and/or details regarding the explosions along the Boston Marathon route and elsewhere, submit them on https://bostonmarathontips.fbi.gov/. No piece of information or detail is too small. You can also call 1-800-CALL-FBI (1-800-225-5324), prompt #3, with information.

"They could hear explosions and gunfire in Watertown," Lappen said of his friends back home. He said he was getting texts and phone calls about the massive manhunt in his hometown as it was happening.

"I was just kind of concerned and nervous for my friends and you know, people I know back home," said Lappen.

The Champlain College student describes the chaos and live reports from streets so familiar to him as surreal.

"I've never seen Watertown on the news for anything really. Even local news in Massachussets, it's rare to catch mention of the name Watertown, so when you do, we always used to get excited. But I'd rather not see them on the news for something like this," said Lappen.

Students from the Boston area at the University of Vermont are stunned by the events of the week too.

"This is where I've grown up my entire life and I don't know, it has, like this degree of reality that I've never experienced before and it's just really, really disturbing," said Charlotte Cohn, a UVM freshman from Lexington, Mass.

As groups of prospective students visited UVM's campus, at least one from the Boston area worried about his return home.

"I'm just in awe of how it's happening so close to home. We were just saying how you hear of these things, like, in Israel, but to have it here, it's eye-opening, really," said Ben Hirsh of Sharon, Mass.

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